Modernist Fiction, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Community

In Modernist Fiction, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Community, Jessica Berman argues that the fiction of Henry James, Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein engages directly with early twentieth-century transformations of community and cosmopolitanism. Although these modernist writers develop radically different models for social organization, their writings return again and again to issues of commonality, shared voice, and exchange of experience, particularly in relation to dominant discourses of gender and nationality. The writings of James, Proust, Woolf, and Stein, she argues, not only inscribe early twentieth-century anxieties about race, ethnicity, nationality and gender, but confront them with demands for modern, cosmopolitan versions of community. This study seeks to revise theories of community and cosmopolitanism in light of their construction in narrative, and in particular it seeks to reveal the ways that modernist fiction can provide meaningful alternative models of community.

In this 2001 book, Jessica Berman claims that modernist fiction engages directly with early twentieth-century transformations of community and cosmopolitanism. Although modernist writers develop radically different models for social organization, their writings return repeatedly to issues of commonality and shared voice, particularly in relation to dominant discourses of gender and nationality.

Acknowledgments; Part I. Cosmopolitan Communities; Part II. Henry James: 1. 'The history of the voice': Cosmopolitan's America; 2. Feminizing the nation: woman as cultural icon in late James; Part III. Marcel Proust: 3. Proust, Bernard Lazare and the politics of pariahdom; 4. The community, the prophet and the pariah: relation in A la recherche du temps perdu; Part IV. Virginia Woolf: 5. 'Splinter' and 'mosaic': towards the politics of connection; 6. Of oceans and opposition: the action of The Waves; Part V. Gertrude Stein: 7. Steinian topographies: the making of America; 8. Writing the 'I' that is 'they': Gertrude Stein's community of the subject; Part VI. Conclusion; Notes; Index.